


I Love You

by devilsduplicity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsduplicity/pseuds/devilsduplicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Dean first said "I love you" to Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You

**Who:** Dean/Castiel, Sam, mentions of Bobby  
 **What:** Written for [](http://oddlyfamiliar.livejournal.com/profile)[**oddlyfamiliar**](http://oddlyfamiliar.livejournal.com/) on the Dean/Cas;Jensen/Misha [schmoop meme](http://qthelights.livejournal.com/758207.html). Archived here. _How Dean first said "I love you" to Cas._  
 **When:** Set ambiguously through Seasons 4-5.  
 **Word Count:** 1,824  
 **Warnings:** Language. Fluff!

 

 

The first time was a slip of the tongue and a lack of real sobriety.

"I love-- uh..."

Dean was sitting in a ratty old booth across from his brother; another back-roads, family-run diner to add to the never-ending list of déja vu-induced attractions the Winchesters could tick off their list of Been There, Done That. He'd been talking to Sam about their latest hunt; had jolted in surprise when the air beside him had shifted, parted, and made way for the presence of the trench coat-clad member of their little ragtag group. The smile that flit across his lips was sudden and irrepressible.

 _'Hey, Cas,'_ his mind had supplied, but his mouth had different plans, and before he knew it, 'love' -- the heaviest word known to man -- had been flung out into the ether.

Sam raised an eyebrow, curious, and Cas merely tipped his head to the side and regarded Dean with a warm, neutral air.

The waitress came in about that time, set a plate with a giant slice of pie down in front of Dean, and the subsequent clatter jolted him into action.

" _Pie_ ," he said, as if it were a prayer. "I love pie!"

_'Good cover.'_

He drowned his sarcasm in sweet cherry filling.

 

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

 

The next time was absolutely, irrefutably Cas' fault.

Dean only participated in happy cuddle times when it was post-orgasmic, because the last time he'd checked, he hadn't grown a vagina. Somehow, Castiel, the sneaky little angelic bastard he was, had wrangled him onto the bed and into his arms, as slick as you please, and for some ungodly reason, Dean wasn't bitching about it. (Bitching was more Sam's thing, really. Moaning, however, he could attest to Castiel.) So he sucked it up and suffered through the gentle touches, the curl of lithe fingers drawing patterns on the side of his shirt; how they didn't even have a movie going to distract each other from the intimacy of the moment; how Dean was playing the little spoon.

That last part made him push away -- made him crawl to the edge of the bed and sling his arm over the side with a huff.

Dean fucking Winchester did not fucking _spoon_ with _non-human men_. Thus was the law of the universe. It was just how things were supposed to be.

"Dean," came that damnably calm voice behind him, making him shudder and chill and almost half-way regret pulling away. Almost. _Maybe_.

... Dammit.

"I'm just tired, Cas," he said by way of explanation, then closed his eyes because, hell, maybe if he pretended he was tired, it might actually come true.

Dean nearly choked on his own breath when Cas made another noise -- him and his damned _noises_ ; all deep and all-encompassing and fucking _sexually charged_. It was low, like a growl, and thick as honey, rising up out of his sternum to spill into the open air. The bed creaked about the same instant the distinctive sound of an angel's tan trench coat went clomping down to the dirty motel room floor, and before Dean could even turn around and question _what the fuck_ was going on, Castiel's solid chest pressed firmly against his back.

"Then sleep," the angel said, and Dean couldn't help but notice that there was something in his voice that sounded... well. It sounded like that moment before Dean had poured itching powder in Sam's pants, when his grin had been wide and the little voice in the back of his head had kept chanting, _'This is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome!'_

And so, knowing what that tone could entail, this was most certainly _not_ awesome.

"Not with you hanging over me, breathing down my neck."

The body behind him, though already still, somehow froze even further.

"Why not?" There was no insult there, simply curiosity and confusion.

Dean closed his eyes, opened them again.

"As much as I love having you as my personal stalker, Cas, it's... kinda distracting."

There was that word again. 'Love'. But it was okay when his voice was laced with heavy sarcasm, right? It was acceptable then. Didn't matter if it might or might not be true... or not. No one needed to know that, even if the one not knowing was the only one who really knew.

... God, his head hurt.

Dean shifted, went to lay his head down, but Castiel pressed a hand to his side, slid an arm against his pillow, pushed it out of the way, and before Dean could help it, he was laying his temple against the suit jacket of said personal stalker. He sighed, deflated, thought about complaining, but eventually let his eyelids flutter shut in silent defeat.

"I'm not a _woman_ ," he said, voice smooth, no longer tight, but still pressing, still _insistent_.

Castiel wriggled a hand between them, index and middle fingerwalking up Dean's spine.

"I am aware," was his simple reply, and then he leaned in and pressed an open-mouthed kiss against Dean's ear before burying his face between the hunter's shoulder blades.

Castiel didn't sleep. Dean dreamt of pie.

 

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

 

It was something subtle that set it off, in the end. It was during the Fourth of July, and Sam and Bobby and Dean and Cas were all gathered around a little setup that had been constructed in the middle of Bobby's scrap yard. Sam was lighting up a string of firecrackers under Bobby's supervision, and Dean was leaning against the hood of the Impala, watching from a distance. Castiel had been rummaging through the giant pile of fireworks the brothers had set off to the side, and eventually came sidling up to Dean with one in tow, a curious expression on his face.

"This one doesn't seem to have a fuse," he stated, peering at the little metal stick with something akin to insult.

Dean snorted into his beer bottle, shook his head.

"It's a sparkler, Cas. You light the top, and you hold it while it sets off."

Oh yeah. Cas was definitely giving him the 'You've Just Grown Three Heads And Now You're Speaking In Latin' look.

"Here," he held out his hand. "Lemme show you."

Castiel handed off the stick somewhat reluctantly, and watched, fascinated, as Dean pulled a lighter out of his back pocket and set the flame to the end of the firework. It lit up, sparked like a small combustion, and Cas jolted back in surprise. He blinked several times, ignorant to Dean's laughter, and warily edged closer to the strange phenomenon, peering at the sparking light, to Dean, and back to the sparking light.

"Here, take it," Dean said, pressing the firework closer. Cas flinched back.

The moment pinpointed to a single beat of time, then; like a clock tick-tocking away until the second-hand struck the top, and the hour went careening into the unknown.

Dean pulled the stick back, watched as it fizzed out, then gave a little shrug.

"Don't know why you're so afraid," he said. "It reminds me of you -- the first time we met. Remember?" His grin was wide, nostalgic. "The floodlights didn't agree with you."

"You stabbed me in the chest," Castiel pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you had this look of imminent rape on your face. I was justified."

Cas blinked, and Dean waved him off.

"Go get another one."

He did as told, blinking out of existence only to come striding back with another sparkler in tow. This time, Dean made him hold it; wrapped one hand around Castiel's for support, then flickered the flame across the top and pulled away when the sparks went flying. The angel was still a little stunned at first -- not necessarily _afraid_ , but rather intrigued -- but eventually relaxed his stance, crazy blue eyes fluttering all across each and every flare of too-bright light until the sparkler sputtered out of existence.

"These are my favorite," Castiel said with a solemn tone, as if passing God's divine judgment onto a trifle such as this.

 _You're_ my favorite, Dean thought, and then beat down his own schmoopy mind with the Winchesterian Manly Stick passed down to him by his father.

To offset the sudden swell of estrogen invading his system, Dean took a deep draw of his beer, downing the rest of it in one go, then shuddered at the deliciously warm feeling that covered him from head to toe.

"I love you," he said, grinning.

"I love you too," replied the angel, as if he were merely stating a fact.

It wasn't until Dean set down his empty bottle and reached for another one that the sudden impossibility of his words struck him like a sucker punch to the stomach.

"I--" he blinked, swallowed, tried very hard to breathe through the lump in his throat. "I didn't mean--" _Didn't mean?_ Oh, great. Now he sounded like a _dick_. "What I _meant_ to say, was--"

Castiel's smile threw him off balance. It wasn't wide or intrusive -- hell, it was barely even _there_ \-- but it lit up his face, softened his features, until the thought of taking back that word, of negating what he'd said, made Dean feel sick to his stomach.

"I'm glad you said it out loud."

Dean blinked, speechless, and leaned further into the Impala as Cas stepped closer.

"Your soul has been screaming it at me for months now."

The angel leaned forward as Dean leaned back, their bodies untouching, but the reverberation of the air buzzed like something alive around the both of them. They shared each other's space, breathed each other's air, and the slow, thrumming ache of Castiel simply hanging, suspended, so close to him made Dean's knees feel shamefully shaky. He couldn't trust his legs to keep him up, and so laid his palms flat on the hood of the car.

Castiel paused, his mouth a centimeter away from Dean's own.

"It was starting to get obtrusive."

Dean gave a little laugh, all nervous energy, and when Cas leaned in, when their lips brushed in the sweetest of motions, all light and airy and soft, he couldn't help but let that laugh bubble between them; sunlight, like drops of rain, pouring out of his soul in a manner unlike anything Dean had ever felt before.

And then a bottle rocket hit him in the leg.

He jerked back, gasped, danced on one foot, then rounded towards the sound of his brother laughing his ass off in the distance. Sam's back was turned, and he was catapulting himself over spare parts, lighter and a pack of bottle rockets in hand.

"Yeah, you _better_ run!" Dean yelled after him, then decided now was a perfectly good time to teach Castiel how to properly utilize an entire pack of fireworks.

Later, Sam found out that when you challenge an angel to a bottle rocket war, the angel always wins.  
 


End file.
